Took my first freehand shot in my handgun hunting career today. Please don't be deceived by the old cowboy flicks showing guys on their belly's shooting prone w/ 6 shooters shooting Indians off galloping horses. Really she had busted me so i dropped prone on my belly to hide myself for a shot. Well it was a 50/50 chance for me to score. So i let 1 fly and the rest is history. I hope i didn't offend anyone with the Indian comment. If did i will delete the post.

I have been taken by surprise and had to shoot offhand. It seems no matter how much you plan stuff happens. Some years back when I first got my 475L, I got set up to be able to take a 270 degree shot. The deer didn't get my email. I had to take the shot offhand. Well, I generally loosen my grip a bit for offhand shooting. Needless to say the gun hit me between the eyes. The shot was great though and the deer was down.

And this is precisely why I feel that using some of these "portable" rests, do a hunter much good from a skill standpoint. Allow me to explain. When you drag a scaled down facsimile of your bench out to the field, you may be increasing your chances, but you aren't increasing your skills. If all you do is treestand hunting, you will probably be okay. But it you mix it up, you might not be doing yourself any favors. This is why I think offhand practice is the most useful as it is often inevitable that you will end up taking an offhand shot. Or your follow-up shots will probably be offhand. When you get good offhand, everything else is really easy. I would implore everyone serious about handgun hunting to dedicate a good portion of your practice to shooting offhand.

And this is precisely why I feel that using some of these ?portable? rests, do a hunter much good from a skill standpoint. Allow me to explain. When you drag a scaled down facsimile of your bench out to the field, you may be increasing your chances, but you aren?t increasing your skills. If all you do is treestand hunting, you will probably be okay. But it you mix it up, you might not be doing yourself any favors. This is why I think offhand practice is the most useful as it is often inevitable that you will end up taking an offhand shot. Or your follow-up shots will probably be offhand. When you get good offhand, everything else is really easy. I would implore everyone serious about handgun hunting to dedicate a good portion of your practice to shooting offhand.

You sound like lynn thompson. I listened to him speak on this years ago andIt effected my hunting significantly in a good way. All but one of my african animals was off hand and half were on the move. It has helped my success immensely.

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Life member-NRA-SCIMember-HHI #2900-HHASA #067Colt-Ruger-Freedom Arms-and S&W Collector Assoc.s"I have more guns then I need but not as many as I want" "Handgun hunters HAVE to be good"

+1 to Doc and Max.Like many competition shooters, 99.9% of my shooting is at the range standing unsupported. While this certainly has given me confidence in shooting offhand, it also has a downside. It was only when I went to Africa that I was introduced to shooting sticks. I felt like a fish out of water. I had no idea how to use them properly. Nothing seemed natural and I didn't have a good understanding of how to adjust height or how the sticks could change point of impact.

The same could be said about using trees, packs and other rests.

It showed me the need to practice extensively using every position, aid and feature likely to be encountered when actually hunting.

+1 to Doc and Max.Like many competition shooters, 99.9% of my shooting is at the range standing unsupported. While this certainly has given me confidence in shooting offhand, it also has a downside. It was only when I went to Africa that I was introduced to shooting sticks. I felt like a fish out of water. I had no idea how to use them properly. Nothing seemed natural and I didn't have a good understanding of how to adjust height or how the sticks could change point of impact.

The same could be said about using trees, packs and other rests.

It showed me the need to practice extensively using every position, aid and feature likely to be encountered when actually hunting.

If you use the same grip tension whenever you shoot, your POI will not change appreciably irrespective of shooting position.

I.ve come acclimated to the PSR on a Bog Pod. I practice this way. I shoot many groundhogs this way. I've taken all my "big game", but one, this way over the last 3 years.I've found one very important key is not to rest the butt of your gun on the PSR platform. I rest my left hand on the platform just a few inches and grip my gun the usual way with both hands. You can also put a very small sand bag under the grip. Otherwise you get a little bounce of the gun.The same thing can be done with the last generation of tripods with the short arm rest to put your right forearm on it. Almost as stable as the PRS.I've bugged the Bog Pod makers to reintroduce the PSR (since I just broke mine, and before). Maybe if others could chime in, it might help.I was forced to use "African" tripods early in my trips there. It was a total fiasco. With my PSR I've made shots out to 581. It adds another tool for the handgunner.